Sex on ice

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Taking their inspiration from Rick Wakeman, Machine Gun
Fellatio are making their comeback on ice, writes Michael
Dwyer.

The art of senseless spectacle has enjoyed mixed reviews ever
since the Christians met the lions. Take the original glam-rock
catastrophe of the early '70s, for example, which erected an
instant wall between "serious" rock fans and the spangly ilk of
Alice Cooper and Gary Glitter.

Today, the Madonna/Kylie/Britney all-jiggling extravaganza is
perceived by many cynics as a desperate distraction from a lack of
musical substance. And some sniffy party-poopers still consider
King Arthur On Ice a low point in Rick Wakeman's high-concept
career.

Sydney band Machine Gun Fellatio have learnt from all of the
above, and earned their share of detractors with their personal
neon signs, their strategically worn stuffed animals, the nightly
in-house fancy dress competition and certain members' preference
for going starkers.

But when such stadium show-ponies as Kiss, Duran Duran and
Robbie Williams come looking for support acts, the list of
big-thinking glamour bunnies boils down to MGF pretty quick.
Frankly, they're on a winner. Hence the flagrant arena implications
of their new album, On Ice.

"They taught me a lot, those tours," says Pinky Beecroft, one of
several show-offs jostling for MGF's centre spotlight. "Robbie put
on a good show. I thought he was a great bloke. And Duran Duran
were f---in' great. Backstage was hilarious. The egos! It was great
being third on the bill, like the little kids of the tour.

"Duran Duran had obviously never supported anyone before in
their lives, and they were like, 'What the f---?' They were stuck
in this little tent with us, and we're a difficult bunch to be on
the road with. We drank their rider consistently, smoked their
cigarettes, f---ed their tent up ...

"Simon LeBon was like, 'Who are you? Why are we out here?' But
most of them were great. We've got pictures of Nick Rhodes wearing
fake vaginas on his head, giving mouth-to-mouth to inflatable
dolls, humiliating himself for the cameras."

The Kiss tour was "totally different", he says. "Paul Stanley
was unreal, lively, having fun: 'Hey, I'm 54 years old and I'm
doin' it and I love it!' He's flying over the crowd and playing his
guitar, doing the whole thing. He was hilarious.

"But Gene (Simmons) was just a sad old f---." Beecroft mimes a
bass-slapping grizzly bear in the throes of extreme boredom. "He
just wasn't a happy dude, you know? But to give Gene his due, we
ran into him at a strip club in Adelaide on a Tuesday morning at
half past four. So that gets my respect.

"It's unbelievable how fast you can get used to having 60,000
people in front of you," he adds. "The last Robbie show in Sydney,
there were only 45 or 50,000 people, and I remember coming out on
stage and thinking, 'I hate these nights when nobody turns
up.'"

The most surreal moment of the summer, however, was at the Kiss
show in Adelaide. In a classic instance of double-think, a number
of irate fans leant over the crash barrier to denounce MGF as "a
freak show".

MGF have about 20 years to register on that freak scale, but
naming their third album On Ice is a clear notice of intent. As
Walt Disney and Rick Wakeman knew perfectly well, going ice is a
gesture that promises monster spectacle over and above artistic
substance.

"I got really sick of that 'Let's go back to rock' thing,"
Beecroft explains. "Last month it was 'Let's be the Velvet
Underground'; this month it's 'Let's be Iggy, let's strip
everything raw'.

"I say let's go back to Disney. Let's go Mickey Mouse on
ice-skates and camp it up a bit. I just think that's us,
essentially. I don't think we're ever gonna be the Black Rebel
Motorcycle Club. We're kinda like the Mushrooms Motorcycle Club who
have forgotten their mushrooms and turned up in prams instead. And
gone for it anyway.

"The artistic merit thing? That's a discussion people will have,
and I don't really give a f---. It only concerns me if I don't like
one of our songs. And that's a fight I have within the band. No one
else comes close to slagging us as much as we slag each other."

One of Beecroft's favourite On Ice songs, Little Cutie, is a
case in point. Undisclosed members of MGF - maybe Bryan
Ferrysexual, maybe Chit Chat von Loopinstab, Loveshark, 3KShort,
the Widow Jones or KK Juggy - take exception to: "Hey there little
cutie, you're a beauty, don't be moody, let's get nudie." But the
writer is unrepentant.

"It's always a shit-fight," he sighs. "It's a hard band to be
in. There's too many people, and they all wanna do everything.
There's seven songwriters now." He frowns out the cafe window for a
moment. "Isn't there? How many people are there in this band? Well,
all of them think they're songwriters."

While most of MGF continue to live in Sydney and surrounds,
Beecroft has moved to Melbourne to maintain his personal space, his
sanity and an acceptable degree of sobriety. Most days he's a
faceless TV screenwriter named Matt Ford (Stingers, Wildside, Love
Is a Four-Letter Word). As such, he admits to a feeling "panic -
that's the only word" about MGF's return to the stage.

"We're not short of ideas in this band, but we're short on
execution a lot of times. Like, we wanted a 90-foot cactus. Then
you get to the Prince of Wales and it's like, 'Oh, the ceiling's
there?' The cactus stays in the van. We had these huge sheep at one
point, with babies' heads. They're in someone's backyard now. Poor
crew, lugging them from town to town, and they never fit
anywhere.

"I just wanna do something really great," he says with a very
Pinky note of anxiety. "We all do. But we don't know what it
is."

MGF play at the Prince of Wales, St Kilda, tonight. On
Ice is out on FMR.